Monday 6 April 2009

Will he come back to haunt us?

The latest edition of Four Four Two has a feature on fifty top Football League footballers, chosen through website voting by fans. The only Charlton player to feature is Nicky Bailey in the 'best of the rest'. He is described as 'a rare ray of light at The Valley this season'. If we can keep him, Racon and Shelvey next season, we might be serious contenders in League 1.

Number 48 is Charlie MacDonald, now hitting them in at Brentford. His four years at Charlton are described as 'frustrating'. He then went to score 28 for Fleet and had a fruitless season at Southend. Given that Brentford are likely to be promoted to League 1, will he come back to haunt us?

Was he one that got away? Not really. He scored a good equaliser against Newcastle, but he wasn't Premiership or even Championship quality. But that is not a consideration for us these days.

Having spent much of the day in the august surroundings of the Royal Society I hoped I could get away from Charlton matters, but then I saw a Derby County fan bearing down on me. He reminded me that we play them at the end of the season. As usual, he wanted to know what had gone wrong.

What we both agreed on is that in no other walk of life would you fail to deliver at three organisations and then be rewarded with a higher level job (Dowie at Newcastle).

'Bottom club Charlton' is a label I will be glad to see the back of. Hopefully, 'Charlton Nil' will not occur too many times next season. But then we went down to the Championship, I was expecting more home wins.

2 comments:

tonto bigelo said...

Just thought it worthy to note, that we have only failed to score in 10 league games this season, and 4 of those were 0-0, point gaining games. Plus 4 of the others were just 1-0 defeats.

Our problem hasn't been scoring the odd or goal or two, its been defending. Whether its been set pieces, not picking up movement, or just general organisation, we've been woefully inadequate at the back - a problem I'm not convinced will just evaporate next season.

I agree with you Wyn that keeping Bailey, Shelvey and Racon may well be the key to bouncing back, but the home front still needs some serious surgery.

Wyn Grant said...

You're right, but exactly where is the problem? Hudson has seemed generally satisfactory to me (although some of his errors have been fatal), but he may not stay. Fortune would be good enough for League 1, but would he stay? Right back and left back has been less settled, but Basey should be able to cope in League 1.